


Up Where We Belong

by SketchWitch



Category: Rune Factory (Video Games), Rune Factory 4
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, might have wanted a higher rating based on language but w/e
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-12
Updated: 2020-11-12
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:41:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27518539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SketchWitch/pseuds/SketchWitch
Summary: Doug/Dylas prompt fill! “Up” from Sing Street and “soulmates” were the two prompts I had to fill from the RF Writers’ Discord. Find us at: https://discord.gg/GcKrFqd for prompts, community, and writing events!
Relationships: Doug/Dylas (Rune Factory)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 15





	Up Where We Belong

There was just something about the new guy in town that made Doug furious. Every time they saw each other, he  _ had _ to pick a fight, calling him short, pea-brained, or any number of insults. That fucking horse. He had no right. No right to be so rude and coarse, when Doug…

Well, Doug supposed that the rudeness and coarseness could be excused because Dylas--for whatever bizarre reason--got along with the dragon. That dragon, Lady Ventuswill; Doug was starting to believe that she wasn’t capable of the violence and destruction that the Sechs soldiers exploring the ruins of his village told him about. Not to mention that she seemed… tired. More so when Dylas came to town than before. It could be a coincidence; time was passing, and everyone got tired at some point. But…

Dylas’ integration into Selphian society certainly had suspicious timing. Doug wasn’t particularly protective of the dragon. But something was fishy, and it wasn’t Dylas’ seemingly only hobby. Get it? Because the guy fished a lot.

That was another thing: Dylas was amazing at fishing. Like, unfairly so. It was so completely infuriating how someone could be so good at something when Doug didn’t really have much of anything he was good at. Sure, he was a decent fighter, and yeah, he helped out at the General Store (which Granny Blossom always thanked him for, even if he didn’t do that great of a job; it made him want to do better to be worthy of such praise, but that was beside the point). He didn’t have a special skill. He was loud, and a lot of the time, people said he was annoying.

Especially Dylas.

Doug didn’t want Dylas to call him annoying. He didn’t want Dylas to think of him that way; he wanted… what? What was it that he actually wanted from Dylas? Doug rolled over on the grass where he was resting and laid his head in his crossed arms, pondering just that thought. The sounds of the lakewater down the hill relaxed him…

A loud grunt and a splash broke into Doug’s peace and quiet. It was a Holiday; Doug’s day off from working at the General Store, and Dylas was just… fishing. The yelp of irritation died in his throat. In fact, Doug didn’t seem capable of summoning his voice at all, at that moment. Dylas turned his gaze to Doug, only to offer him a spare rod that he mysteriously had next to him. Doug hadn’t seen it there before. He didn’t say anything, but looked at him expectantly. Something about this scene was familiar, but he couldn’t quite place it. What was it that he wanted? Doug’s mind was quiet, so he decided to listen to his heart, instead.

He took the fishing pole.

His feet carried him a distance away; not so close that fish might be confused--where he remembered that from, he couldn’t say--but close enough that anyone else might be able to tell that they were fishing together. No one else was about to pass by the lake, though. Doug knew that--why did he know that?

Oh.

He was dreaming.

Doug hadn’t allowed himself a sleep with dreams in so long, but here they were. He was dreaming and Dylas was there, and they were fishing.  _ Together _ . Why did this scene feel so familiar?

Doug felt a powerful tug on his fishing line. He did his best to hold the rod steady and reel the fish in, but he was struggling to do it on his own. Dylas must have noticed the splashing, because he ran over to assist, wrapping his hands around the fishing pole between Doug’s. He held the rod steady as Doug brought the fish out of the water. When they could swing the fish onto the lakeshore, Dylas caught it with a face as pink as the rather large Lover Snapper they apparently caught together.  _ Together _ .

And everything clicked into place.

Doug remembered coming to this very lake, before he even came to Selphia. He wondered at the time where such a beautiful place could possibly exist, but he remembered the lake. He remembered the fish. He remembered fishing together-- _ together _ \--with a man who looked an awful lot like Dylas. The man taught him how to fish, and both of them had been much more patient in dreams than in real life. Maybe the fish had come quickly then, too; who knew for sure? But that didn’t matter, since the dreams had long ago been replaced by nightmares of flame and ash that overtook his entire clan. The smoke that ravaged his senses then was gone now, though. This memory washed it all away in the waves of Selphia’s Dragon Lake.

He dreamed that he met Dylas many times over the course of his childhood, as he grew up. When he was a child, Dylas had smiled at him often. He hadn’t had this dream in so many years, but Dylas wasn’t smiling anymore. Why wouldn’t he smile…? Was it because Doug knew Dylas now, and how he almost never smiled? Or was it because Doug had given him so many reasons  _ not _ to smile?

Dylas was--uncharacteristically--the first to break the silence between them.

“Doug--” he started, but Doug-- _ very _ characteristically--cut him off.

“I remember now,” Doug interrupted, finally finding his voice. “I used to have this dream a lot when I was a kid. We caught fish like this back then, too. I haven’t had this dream since…” he hesitated.

“Since the fire,” Dylas finished for him.  _ He knew _ . Doug flashed him a glare, as if he could have been in on the secret; as if he hadn’t been asleep for  _ hundreds of years _ , so there was no logical way for him to be involved beyond-- “I saw in your nightmares.”

Doug gasped. Dylas sat on the shore of the lake with the fish flopping before him, which might have been comical if not for the fact that one of them needed only the will to make the fish still. “You… remember?” he whispered. Dylas smiled wryly.

“Yeah,” he answered. “I couldn’t find you in the wreckage; not that I had a lot of time before you woke up.” 

Doug slept fitfully for a long time after that dragon destroyed his village. Eventually, he asked a doctor to give him a potion that would allow him a dreamless sleep. He wondered what would have happened if he hadn’t asked; if he’d never gone with the Sechs in the first place. Would he still have made his way to Selphia? Would he still have hated Ventuswill? And Dylas…

He knew Dylas hated him in real life, but something still nagged at Doug.

In the distance, another part of his mind, really, sat Doug’s grandmother. Not Granny Blossom, but his  _ actual _ grandmother. She smiled at him, and told him that he must have found his soulmate; another memory from before the flames. Not everyone had soulmates, but those who did were told to meet them in their dreams. Soulmates transcended life and death, but everyone would meet their soulmate as they were in life.

For so long, Dylas had appeared the same way to Doug. Dylas had been a monster for maybe hundreds of years before Princess Frey found him in the Water Ruins. Dylas appeared in all of Doug’s dreams when he was younger. He wondered if he appeared in Dylas’. He clicked his tongue with the realization.

“Well, this fucking sucks,” he observed. “We’re soulmates.”

“I suppose we are,” Dylas agreed coolly. Doug only growled.

“I don’t get it! You  _ hate _ me! We’re always fighting, and--” Doug just shouted in dismay after that.

“I don’t hate you,” Dylas all but whispered.

Doug whipped around to face Dylas. Huh…? “Then, why…” Doug clenched his fists. “Why couldn’t you even  _ look _ at me when we met?”

“Because…” Dylas started

“Because  _ why _ ?” Doug insisted.

“Because things were different! I couldn’t remember what happened to the people I left behind, but… I remembered  _ you _ from what must have been dreams. And even then, I hadn’t seen you in years! You went on and had a life without me… I thought you moved on, or something happened and we weren’t soulmates anymore.”

Doug raised his eyebrow. “And you call  _ me _ stupid.” He started snickering.

Dylas turned toward him with a questioning look.

Doug pointed at the fish that lay at their feet. “Look; even after everything that’s happened, and all this time… We still managed to catch the same kind of fish! That’s got to count for something!” He gave Dylas a thumbs-up, while the other man blushed.

“It’s a lot bigger than the ones we used to catch, though,” he pointed out.

“Probably some bullshit about how it’s a sign that our feelings have grown or something,” Doug laughed. Dylas chuckled.

“Probably,” he agreed.

As birds began their early morning songs, Dylas stood and stretched. He held out his hand to Doug, who thought that maybe this was what he wanted; what he had been missing all along. Looking up, Dylas was smiling softly at him, kind of like how he used to when Doug was younger and they were first getting to know each other.

“See you in the morning,” Dylas said, and Doug tugged on his tie to bring Dylas’ face closer to his.

He groaned as Granny Blossom whacked his bedroom door with her cane. “Doug!” she called. “I made breakfast! It’s Thursday, so I need you to mind the store.”

Rolling over, he called back, “I’ll be right there, Granny!”

Maybe Dylas would stop by the General Store today.


End file.
